Gemini (Birthday Song)

It starts with you
 On a mattress in your parents' old room,
 Clipping your toenails into the room
 Like the room will fade
 And you will move
 Onto other rooms
 And you will go
 To other places.
 Then the wedding,
 Then the woman passed out
 In the driver's seat
 At the order board at White Castle.
 We woke her up and she went
 'Round to the pick up window
 Like she knew exactly where she was.
 Then I wept
 With my face in your night shirt,
 Trying hard as hell to say
 "Until death separates us,"
 Loosening the skin on your breastbone,
 I painted your nails
 And you sleep
 While I write all this down.
 There was a moth caught in the soapdish
 Laminated in lye
 Will you still remember me well
 If I don't get to two-o-o-five?
 My dead line Gemini
 When we're on different sides of the globe
 I thought we'd keep our veins tangled
 Like a pair of mic cables,
 And if there ain't enough slack to reach
 That we'd solder them together
 And across oceans they'd stretch.
 Our faces reflected in separate windshields
 And all our body hair pricked up
 An elephant eyelash.
 Should we be tempted by thief or saint
 It seems I leave and you stay
 To crawl the cage and curse.
 But don't regret the done dirt,
 There is no life plan set,
 You just swallow the cold
 And follow your breath until death.
 Now even if the will to sleep persists
 I can't 'cause a harsh cloth, it grazes my blisters.
 There was a moth caught in the soapdish
 Laminated in lye
 Will you still remember me well
 If I don't get to two-o-o-five?
 My dead line Gemini.
 Today I fell asleep in a bath of hair.
 Hair that once sprouted from my own
 White wet chalk follicles.
 I swallow a coal
 And follow my breath
 And I did it with the grapefruit soap
 Thinking of you.
 Bathed, shaved, and oiled,
 Your legs are two skinny dolphins swimming
 Between the mattress and the layers of bedding
 Turning in your drug dry sleep.
 When I ask you to kiss my pulse
 You offer to start the shower.
 I want a verb and you give me a noun.
 What do you dream up while I tongue you down?
 There was a moth caught in the soapdish
 Laminated in lye
 Will you still remember me well
 If I don't get to two-o-o-five?
 My dead line Gemini.
 You know my build.
 You know my size.
 The degree to which my eyes
 Are astigmatic.